Posts tagged teachers’ unions
Teachers’ union boss blames math test slide on COVID — after fighting to keep remote learning
December 6, 2023 // The leader of the second-largest teachers’ union in the US linked the worldwide drop in math scores on a key international test to the COVID-19 pandemic — during which she had lobbied against a full return to in-person learning. American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten issued a statement that said remote learning was to blame for the drop in the 2022 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) math evaluation after scores were released Tuesday.
Opinion: Banning teacher strikes in Oregon’s best interest
November 29, 2023 // Certainly, teachers’ union strikes that intentionally bar children from the classroom pose a significant barrier to quality education. If parents and taxpayers could face legal penalties for disrupting public education, why shouldn’t teachers’ unions? 37 states and Washington, D.C. prohibit teachers from striking. Teachers’ unions who initiate strikes in Nevada, for example, are fined $50,000 for each day that students are unable to attend school. In Maryland, unions who authorize a strike are immediately removed as the district’s exclusive representative. Oregon should follow the lead of Nevada and Maryland’s anti-strike legislation, both of which punish disruptive unions while protecting teachers.
Boarded The Teachers’ Union Takeover of NY School Districts
November 21, 2023 // NYSUT’s involvement in state and federal elections is well-documented, but the low turnout in New York’s generally nonpartisan school board elections has given it an even bigger opportunity. The union also isn’t stopping with school boards: its electoral efforts involve elevating members to local, state and federal office, positions from which union members could eventually affect every facet of education policy. The system of campaign finance rules that regulate everything from elections for governor down to town assessors does not cover school board elections.
UNION CONTRACTS TRAMPLE LOUISIANA PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS’ AND EMPLOYEES’ RIGHTS
September 15, 2023 // “These unconscionable agreements restrict teachers’ First Amendment rights, force them to be members of unions against their will, make it difficult to resign from the union, and even prevent them from learning about competing organizations that provide similar benefits to school employees.” In addition to trampling teachers’ First Amendment rights, the Pelican Institute found that CBAs at two Louisiana school systems grant union members who are parents the opportunity to select a different school that fits their children. Proponents of school choice believe that a child’s zip code shouldn’t determine their destiny. Unions seem to agree, but only if they bestow parents with that choice.
Under new Michigan law, schools can value seniority over quality
August 18, 2023 // Critics of the bill, such as Michigan House Republican Leader Matt Hall, claim that the law harms teachers and unnecessarily gives organized labor more control. “Now they’re giving union bosses free rein to lord over the most important decisions at our schools,” Hall said in a statement on the bill. “Teacher placement, performance evaluations, and communication with parents are all vital to creating an effective learning environment and fostering good working relationships with families.” Most states allow some form of collective bargaining in public schools. Six states — Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas — explicitly ban it. Nine states — Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Kentucky, Louisiana, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming — have no statewide basis for collective bargaining. Instead the decision is left to individual jurisdictions. Michigan also stands apart with its law on seniority pay. Public Act 116, which Whitmer signed this month, includes a provision prohibiting “length of service as the sole factor in personnel decisions.”
REPORT: Teachers Unions Trained Educators To ‘Inject Gender Ideology Politics’ Into Classrooms
August 17, 2023 // The DFI report, “Summer of Woke, The Sequel,” said the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) allegedly encouraged educators to promote gender ideology in classrooms. (RELATED: Teachers Union Conference Encouraged Educators To Lobby For Gun Control)
Report disputes role of federal government in labor union participation, reveals forgotten purpose of the National Labor Relations Act
August 2, 2023 // The legislation is always opposed because, contrary to their rhetoric, unions and their allies don’t trust that workers will voluntarily make those payments. If given the chance to keep all of the money they earn, many workers will take that deal, effectively starving the union of revenue. The progressive nonprofit Center for Media and Democracy said that the version drafted for states would make it “very difficult for public employee unions to raise funds for political activities. It would significantly impact public employee unions like teacher’s unions and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), whose expenditures primarily benefit Democrats.”
Op-ed: Placing teachers unions’ power above students’ lives
July 11, 2023 // Ms. Weingarten is the head of the powerful American Federation of Teachers union, and Mr. Pompeo’s assessment notwithstanding, President Biden’s secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, just appointed her to serve on the Department of Homeland Security’s school safety council. According to Mr. Mayorkas, the council will advise the department on school safety and help it “counter the evolving and emerging threats to the homeland.”
Exclusive — Stephen Moore: Democrats Care More About Teachers’ Unions Than About Children
July 10, 2023 // Moore criticized Democrats for opposing school choice and said they “care more about teachers unions then than they do about kids.” In explaining school choice, he said, “It basically would take some of the money that the state legislators … appropriate for schools, and it allows the money to follow the backpack, the kids. It follows the kids to have a better opportunity to go to a Catholic school, or a charter school, or a map school or a science school or a Montessori school.”
What Settlement of Vaccine Mandate Case Says About Corruption of Teachers Unions
June 2, 2023 // But a second lawsuit by the teachers is pending, one that has garnered little media attention but may have greater long-term implications. That lawsuit also was filed against the Barrington Education Association, which brazenly abandoned these three dues-paying union members. In the same case earlier this spring, the three teachers’ attorney, Gregory Piccirilli, filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission claim against the Barrington teachers union, an affiliate of the National Education Association.